


The Right Question

by epsilonargus



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Banter, Comfort Food, Friendship, H/D Food Fair 2018, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts Kitchens, M/M, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Neville Longbottom/Ginny Weasley, Oblivious Harry Potter, Romance, Smitten Harry Potter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-07-18 22:45:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16128311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsilonargus/pseuds/epsilonargus
Summary: Harry is having dinner every week with Malfoy - but no, Ernie, they are not bloody dates!





	The Right Question

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt #[93](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E_uQJlIb5C6nLnMg8VrUUnrKtyx16is1FLbyvoxLEik/edit).
> 
> Thank you mods for organising such an interesting fest! I had fun taking part in it. And thank you to my beta, K, for bearing with me through the multiple drafts and last-minute changes. It must have been a nightmare for you to beta me, so thanks for putting up with me and pushing through <3
> 
> Hope you have fun reading this! Wish I could have had time to write it a little longer, but man, this story has been a challenge. Still, hope you enjoy it!

The first moment is the scent of hearty beef stew bubbling in the pot, and the sizzle of fish cakes frying in the pan, and the anticipation of bread baking in the oven. Malfoy is sitting there across the table, his blonde hair falling in his face, as he bends over double laughing at something Harry has said. The firelight dances across his face, and his grey eyes are luminous with a genuine joy that pierces through Harry’s chest bright as _Lumos_.

Harry pauses in the midst of bringing his spoonful of stew to his mouth, and he stares. Malfoy wipes tears of mirth from his eyes, glances at him, and raises his eyebrows. Harry hastily continues eating.

‘What, am I not allowed to laugh?’ Malfoy asks acerbically. ‘You’ve only yourself to blame for saying something absolutely hilarious.’

Harry makes a face. ‘I guess I should be glad _someone_ finds it funny that my ex-girlfriend’s mother tried to match-make me with one of her sons when I came out to her. My ex’s _older brother_. Bloody hilarious. A proper sit-com.’

‘What’s a sit-com?’ Malfoy tilts his head, frowning quizzically.

‘It’s a type of Muggle TV show. It’s a type of comedy, where people get into ridiculous situations and they try to get out of it and it becomes this huge cock-up and it’s funny,’ Harry explains. ‘Err … you do know what a TV is?’

Malfoy gives him a baleful stare. ‘Potter. I was raised by one of wizarding Britain’s biggest pureblood bigots. My closest friends are purebloods. I’m a former Death Eater disdained by half-bloods and Muggleborns alike. No, I have no bloody idea what a TV is.’

Harry chuckles. ‘Sorry. I forgot.’ And he tells Malfoy what a telly is, and the few times he was allowed to watch it in his childhood, and the other times he lingered in stores with tellies to catch a glimpse of a show he liked. Malfoy listens carefully, his head still cocked, the silky blonde hair that he wears long and loose now spilling over a shoulder. Looking at him, Harry has to remember to tell himself to breathe.

He doesn’t know how they have come to this: having conversations over dinner. He thinks it might have something to do with him realising a month ago that he didn’t see Malfoy in the Great Hall at breakfast, lunch or dinner, and he wondered what his old schoolyard rival was getting up to. Nothing apparently, besides attending classes, studying in the library, and talking quietly with his friends in the eighth year common room.

When he asked Ron and Hermione if they noticed something strange about Malfoy, they exchanged glances and shrugged.

‘Not really,’ Hermione said. ‘Why?’

‘Well …’ Harry looks over his shoulder furtively at Malfoy sitting alone on the couch against the far wall, head bent over a book.

Considering the noisy group playing Exploding Snap in the middle of the common room, it was fairly amazing how Malfoy managed to focus. He turned a page, shifted his position, and bent closer to his book. Harry looked back at his friends. Hermione was watching him shrewdly, while Ron looked rather resigned. Harry frowned.

‘I think it’s a little weird,’ he tried to sound casual. ‘You know, how … _quiet_ Malfoy is now. He’s not showing off in class, or being an obnoxious git. And he doesn’t eat in the Great Hall – did you notice? Isn’t that a _little_ suspicious?’

‘ _And_ he hasn’t been paying attention to you,’ Hermione added.

‘Yes! Wait, no,’ he glared at her. ‘Don’t put words in my mouth.’

‘I didn’t! _I_ said it, and _you_ agreed with me. That’s not putting words in your mouth,’ she protested. ‘You agreed that you’re a _little_ peeved that Malfoy isn’t paying attention to you.’

Harry stared at her, and shook his head in disgust. ‘You’re mad.’ He turned to Ron, who was smirking. ‘Your girlfriend has lost it.’

Ron shrugged. ‘Afraid I agree with her, mate. You find it weird because Malfoy isn’t around poking at you. In fact, he’s barely acknowledged you.’

‘The both of you are mad,’ Harry declared. ‘Why in Merlin’s pants would I _want_ Malfoy’s attention?’

They looked at each other in that inscrutable couple’s way they developed over the past year, looked back at Harry, and shrugged in unison.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to tell us, Harry,’ Hermione said with some sympathy.

He scowled at them, but there was no getting through them. They were determined to be mysterious and secretive (and completely bonkers), and Harry knew he would have to figure out what Malfoy was up to by himself.

He thought of approaching Malfoy directly – that was a rather exasperated Ginny’s suggestion: _why don’t you just bloody talk to him?_ – but quickly dismissed it, because what the hell was he going to say? _Malfoy, you’re not eating in the Great Hall. What are you up to?_ Yeah, that would go down well. Luna suggested writing a letter, but wasn’t that too … personal? Intimate? She replied to his concern in her usual inexplicable manner: ‘But isn’t that what you want, Harry?’

The only option was to dig out the Marauder’s Map. Harry grimaced, as he unfolded the thick parchment, remembering how the last time he followed Malfoy around ended in disaster. It was different this time, because he wasn’t trying to prove that Malfoy was a Death Eater; he only wanted to find out where he went during mealtimes, when most of the school was gathered in the Great Hall and the rest of the castle empty. It made Harry a little uneasy, not having Malfoy where he could watch him.

Harry noticed that Parkinson or Zabini or Nott would bring toast to Malfoy in the mornings, so that was breakfast sorted. During lunch and dinner, according to the map, Malfoy was in the kitchens. Harry followed Malfoy one evening under the Invisibility Cloak, just to make sure. He was also burning to know _why_. But there was nothing furtive about Malfoy’s behaviour as he tickled the pear in the painting of a bowl of fruit and turned the doorknob that appeared. Harry heard a house-elf cry out a happy greeting before the door closed.

He couldn’t figure it out. Why was Malfoy behaving so differently? Where was the overly dramatic, attention-seeking, foul-mouthed prick from before the war? Sitting in the common room with Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville, Harry sneaked glances at Malfoy, who was once again sitting alone in the corner, and wondered for the first time what the war did to him.

He thought he had an inkling. He spoke for Malfoy and his mother at their trials to keep them out of Azkaban, and he saw the way Malfoy wouldn’t look him in the face, the way he flinched at sudden noises and flashes of light, the way the filthy Azkaban robes hung on his skeletal frame. He saw, and he assumed he understood.

They were back in Hogwarts for their eighth year, Malfoy was changed, and Harry found that he didn’t understand after all. What could he know of what Malfoy suffered? Or what his own friends – Ginny and Neville, who were trapped in Hogwarts for a year – suffered? His own incomprehension grated against him, and he was lost about what he could say to Malfoy.

So Malfoy spoke to Harry first.

Harry was lounging on the couch, leaning against Ginny, his eyes closed, when someone said his name directly above him. He opened his eyes, frowning in irritation because he was trying to take a nap, and saw Malfoy’s pale, pointed face right in front of him. He jerked upright, the textbook open on his lap tumbling to the floor. His friends turned to stare at him – and at Malfoy, when they realised who had joined them.

‘Malfoy!’ Harry blurted rather pointlessly.

‘Good evening, Potter.’ Malfoy had moved back a little, and he nodded politely at the others. ‘I won’t keep you from your nap. I just have a question for you.’

‘Oh, yeah, sure. What – what is it?’

‘Would you like to have dinner with me on Friday night?’

Harry blinked. Malfoy looked at him, smiling genially. He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his tailored school robes neatly in place, his silver-and-green tie perfectly knotted. Like the rest of them, he looked like any other eighteen-year-old Hogwarts student; it took a longer gaze to see the dark smudges beneath his unreadable grey eyes and the faint worry lines on his forehead.

‘Yeah, I’d like that,’ Harry said, and Malfoy visibly relaxed, releasing his hands from behind him.

Malfoy’s smile widened just a little, and he dipped his head almost shyly, as he said, ‘Brilliant. I’ll meet you at the entrance hall at six. See you around, Potter.’ He turned around, walked back to his corner, scooped up his book, and disappeared up the stairs to the dorm rooms.

Harry looked around at his friends, who were in various states of surprise. Hermione turned to Ron, grinning triumphantly.

‘You owe me a Sickle!’ she crowed.

Ron groaned, and chucked a cushion at Harry. ‘Bloody hell, Harry! I bet that you would make the first move. Why in Merlin’s pants were you dragging your feet for?’

‘The first move?’ Harry echoed in disbelief. ‘What the ruddy hell does that mean?’

‘It means that Malfoy is braver than you when it comes to asking blokes out,’ Ginny smirked.

‘Malfoy didn’t ask me out!’ Harry retorted.

‘Yes, he did,’ said Ernie Macmillan, who was passing by.

‘No, he didn’t!’ Harry shouted after him.

‘Oh, shut up, Harry,’ Hermione rolled her eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter. The point is that you’ll be having dinner with him on Friday, and you can finally stop stalking him through that silly map.’

‘I’m not –’ Harry stopped and sighed.

His friends, including Neville, were smirking at him. He knew there wasn’t any use trying to reason with them. They _wanted_ to see it as Malfoy asking Harry out for some reason. It wasn’t a date – not blooming likely. It was – it was – well, he hadn’t the foggiest idea why Malfoy would ask him to dinner, but the only way to find out was to turn up, wasn’t it?

Which leads him here, to the kitchens, where Malfoy says he has been eating to avoid the stares and the whispers that follow a Death Eater who somehow got out Azkaban scot-free. He doesn’t let Harry say, _that’s not true. I didn’t save you just so you can hide from the world_ , because he continues talking about his mother moving to France, his favourite spots on their French estate, and the fairly peaceful summer he spent there, and he is asking Harry about his summer, about Ginny.

So Harry has to tell him that _no, we’ve broken up. She’s with Neville now. I’m single. Oh, and I like blokes too. So if you know any good-looking bird or bloke who might want to date a washed-up former hero, send them my way._ Harry is surprised that Malfoy isn’t surprised that Harry is bisexual. The conversation simply flows on. They are talking over beef stew and warm, crusty bread, and Malfoy laughs, and Harry stares, his heartbeat pulsing in his veins, and thinks, _oh shit._

By the end of the night, when the house-elves are putting out the fires and hanging up sparkling clean pots on the walls, Harry hasn’t found out why Malfoy asked him to dinner, but he knows now how Malfoy’s eyes gleam silver when he laughs, and his laughter tastes like having his favourite stew warm in front of the fireplace.

 

* * *

 

 

The fifth time they have dinner together, they have treacle tart for pudding: molten, gooey golden syrup filling with a hint of spicy ginger and tangy lemon zest, combined with a buttery shortbread crust, and served with a dollop of clotted cream. Harry closes his eyes, and sighs in happiness, the flavours of his favourite pudding warm in his mouth.

Malfoy chuckles. Harry opens his eyes, and grins abashedly.

‘Treacle tart is my favourite,’ he explains.

‘I know,’ Malfoy smirks. ‘I asked the house-elves if they might make it tonight.’

Catching Harry’s eye, he adds, ‘Considering the way you can finish an entire tart all on your own during feasts, I’m sure _everyone_ knows that treacle tart is the famous Harry Potter’s favourite.’

‘Right,’ Harry says, a little disappointed; he thought Malfoy had noticed him especially. ‘So … what’s your favourite pudding?’

Malfoy lights up, as he tells him about the heavenly apple cake the Manor house-elves baked for special teas whenever his parents had guests over. He wasn’t allowed to join them, so he would beg the house-elves to save him a small slice, and he would eat it in the small kitchen garden with his hands, licking the powdered sugar from his fingers. Harry smirks, remembering the brat from their first year at Hogwarts.

And somehow, seven years later, here they are: having dinner together. They have been for the past five weeks, sometimes on Saturday, most of the times on Friday. Frequent enough for Ginny to leer, ‘Is he your boyfriend now?’ Ernie, who was once more walking past their group in the corridor, replied over his shoulder, ‘Yes, he is!’, flashing Harry a shit-eating grin.

Harry wonders why the bloody hell his friends are trying to insinuate impossible things. He suspects they might have a bet going on, whatever ridiculous bollocks they choose to put good money on. It _is_ bullshit, because he and Malfoy aren’t anything really – _boyfriend_ is surely at the very bottom of the list. Merlin, it wouldn’t even be on the list.

Yeah, sure, he likes talking to Malfoy, because it turns out that when Malfoy isn’t trying to be a jealous, vindictive prick, he’s witty and entertaining and charming. But Harry likes talking to Dean and Seamus too; that doesn’t mean he wants to date _them._ Even if they are attractive, single, blonde blokes.

What he wants is to be friends. Because he wants to understand.

Harry wipes his sweaty palms on his robes, trying to listen to Malfoy, but distracted by the thundering of his heart. He shouldn’t feel this nervous. Malfoy clearly likes spending time with him – he wouldn’t have asked Harry for dinner otherwise … would he? _Bugger!_

‘Malfoy, can I ask you something?’ Harry blurts.

The other boy pauses in the middle of his story about a lemon meringue tart his mother used to make for his birthdays, and looks at him, a little surprised. ‘You are not going to ask me if you can interrupt me, are you? Because I would hex you.’

Harry laughs despite himself, and shakes his head. ‘No, but I’ll keep that in mind. It’s a different question.’

‘All right …’ Malfoy leans back, picking up his goblet of pumpkin juice and gestures to him. ‘Well, go on then.’

He makes a show of rearranging his face into a suitably earnest one, earning him an eye-roll and muttered, ‘Berk,’ from Harry, who laughs anyway. It’s surprisingly easy for Malfoy to make him laugh. Harry wipes his hands on his robes again.

‘I don’t have all night, Potter,’ Malfoy says teasingly, raising an eyebrow. ‘Ask me. I promise I won’t bite.’

‘Are we – are we –’ _Bloody hell, just say it, Harry!_ ‘Are we friends?’

Malfoy’s face freezes, and Harry feels a moment of pure panic for a long moment before the other boy breaks into a wry smile and takes a sip from his goblet.

‘Salazar, I had no idea you’re the sort who needs to ask,’ he says. ‘Did you ask Granger and Weasley too?’

‘It’s only because it’s different for us, isn’t it?’ Harry retorts, flushing. ‘I mean, we hated each other. This –’ he gestures between the two of them – ‘is new, it’s weird. So I have to know. Are we friends?’

Harry, who thinks he’s used to seeing Malfoy smile by now, who thinks he’s memorised the nuances of Malfoy’s laughter, realises that he’s wrong.

‘You’re such a fool, Potter,’ Malfoy says, his voice low and warm, and he’s chuckling, almost to himself, shaking his head in disbelief.

Harry, watching him, his mouth suddenly dry and his palms sweaty again, imagines a cloudless summer’s day in a flowering garden, a slice of sticky-sweet apple pie in his hands and joy warm and buzzing in his heart. Dizzily, he wonders if he might have asked the wrong question.

 

* * *

 

They are eating on the top floor of the eighth years’ dormitory tower, which opens out to the view of the night sky bright with stars above the seemingly endless spread of the Forbidden Forest on this side of the castle. Harry is munching on the roast beef sandwich the elves fixed for him, which should be delicious, but he can’t really taste it because he’s too distracted thinking what a bastard Malfoy is. He stares straight ahead at the parapet, wondering why the fuck he’s even trying.

Malfoy sits next to him on the cold stone floor, delicately picking at the strange platter of roast beef and slices of Brie and Camembert cheese he asked from the kitchen. He’s clearly intent on pretending their earlier conversation didn’t happen; that Harry didn’t lose his patience and snap, ‘What are you trying to hide, Malfoy? Why wouldn’t you tell me what happened to you?’ Malfoy blanched and looked away, his lips pressed tightly together, leaving Harry to fume silently.

Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have put that way, making it sound as if he’s accusing Malfoy of hiding dark secrets, but he’s frustrated. They talk about almost everything under the sun: Harry’s horrid childhood, Malfoy’s complicated relationship with his father, who is still in Azkaban, their friends, school gossip – hell, even whether they took a dump that morning or not. The barriers have fallen away – or so Harry thought, because the one thing Malfoy wouldn’t talk about is his year during the war.

‘You can’t force someone to relive trauma they don’t want to,’ Hermione told him rather crossly when he complained to her about it. ‘That’s being a selfish prick, Harry.’

But he doesn’t want Malfoy to relive his trauma. The last thing he wants to do is to hurt Malfoy. He only wants … he wants to know every part of this person. It feels like his obsession in sixth year, when he was so certain about Malfoy and the others wouldn’t believe him, except that this time, it’s all consuming, because Harry sees the light along with the darkness, and he’s drowning in how much he wants it all. The brilliance is in the way he feels when Malfoy teases him; when Malfoy is tired and grumpy, but he still manages a smile for Harry; and when Malfoy greets him every dinner, a touch of relief in his smile, as if he cannot quite believe Harry is here _again_.

When Harry looks at Malfoy, he has to clench his fists to resist the urge to touch him. He wants to, badly, but he mustn’t, because there is a part of Malfoy who still doesn’t want to be touched by him. He’s trying his best, until he simply doesn’t know what to do anymore – and he snapped. He wishes he hadn’t, that he could have held the words back – be a better person than he really is. He wonders if Malfoy might like him better then.

‘Why is it so important for you to know?’ Malfoy’s voice is quiet. Controlled.

Harry glances at him. The other boy is tilting his head back, staring up at the star-strewn sky, his plate forgotten next to him. Harry’s heart clenches, and he grits his teeth, looking back down at his half-eaten sandwich. He puts it down, his appetite vanishing.

The reason they are here in the first place is because Harry, unable to sleep, decided he would find something to eat, and when he saw Malfoy alone in the dark and empty common room, he delightedly coaxed him to come along. He looks at Malfoy’s plate, and realises with chagrin that the other boy isn’t even hungry. Harry practically forced him to come. He feels abruptly ashamed. He shouldn’t have opened his bloody mouth.

‘Sorry,’ he says quietly. ‘I don’t have to know. It’s not my right, and it’s none of my business. I shouldn’t have said those things. I’m not accusing you of anything. I know you’re not hiding anything – anything bad. I’m sorry for being an arsehole.’

Malfoy looks at him. He is still looking down, but he feels Malfoy’s eyes boring into him.

‘Will you answer my bloody question?’ Malfoy’s voice is low, controlled, suppressed. ‘Why is it so fucking important that you know what I went through during the war?’

Harry quickly looks up and his stomach drops at the sight of the other boy’s face – still and pale, his eyes dark with fury, his jaw tightly clenched. Well, fuck, now he’s gone and pissed Malfoy off. He swallows, licking his dry lips.

‘I … I want to know more about you, that’s all,’ he says lamely.

‘And you think you haven’t learned enough about over the past few months?’ Malfoy asks sharply. ‘We study together in the common room almost every day. We talk every day. And we still have our weekly dinners. You still feel you hardly know me? Like I’m not truly your friend?’

‘No!’ Harry exclaims. ‘That’s not it. We _are_ friends.’

‘Why do you still call me Malfoy then?’ he asks bitterly. ‘What does it take for me to be enough of a friend for you to call me by my first name? You certainly have no problem calling Parkinson Pansy, and Zabini Blaise the past few months. Why do you still call me Malfoy? I am not my father, Harry!’

Harry is thunderstruck. Because he just called him _Harry_ , not Potter in that slightly combative way that has always defined their relationship. Because he asked him a question he hasn’t really stopped to consider. Because Malfoy … has simply always been Malfoy. He may say the name and think it rather differently than before, but … he’s never thought to define the other boy by his name. What’s important has only ever been how he feels about Draco Malfoy. He sees now that Malfoy – _Draco_ thinks very differently.

‘Draco,’ he says quietly.

The blond stiffens. ‘Don’t fucking do it just because I told you to!’ he snarls.

He turns away from Harry, wrapping his arms around his knees. ‘It is difficult for me to talk about the war, because I’ve done such stupid shit for an ideal I didn’t even believe in. I thought I was trapped. You keep saying that I’ve changed, that I’m different from before, and that’s because I _am_. There are things that I no longer believe in – that I cannot – and that changes the way I behave. And I thought that you saw that – that you _know_ I’m different – but you keep on calling me _Malfoy_.

‘Malfoys – the Death Eaters! The bastards who sucked Voldemort’s dick! The murderous pieces of shit that deserve to rot in Azkaban! I know what people are saying about Draco _Malfoy_ , the heir to his fool of a father’s blood-stained legacy. I _hate_ it – I really fucking loathe it. And it hurts – it hurts even more when it’s _you_ calling me Malfoy.’

Harry doesn’t resist. He pushes the plates between them aside, shifts over and wraps his arms around Draco. Draco gasps audibly, his head turning slightly and stopping just before he looks at Harry straight to the face. Harry exhales. So this is what it feels like to hold Draco, to feel his body thin and warm and trembling against his chest. To have elation swooping through him and terror cramping his stomach at the same time, because he mustn’t – _mustn’t_ – bollocks this up.

‘I know you’ve changed,’ Harry says quietly into the back of Draco’s neck; Draco shivers. ‘So have I. None of us emerged from the war untouched. But … I think that what makes you Draco Malfoy … that hasn’t changed. What I mean is … you’re still the you I knew before the war, and now there are new things about you that I see and like. It’s because you are now free to be who you want to be, and I know you better now – that’s why we are friends now, you see?

‘What I’m trying to say is that I like the person that you are – now and then, so whether you are Draco or Malfoy, I didn’t think it makes a difference, because it doesn’t to me. Because I’d still like you anyway. Anyway, I just didn’t want to call you Draco because … it feels sort of presumptuous, you know? I don’t know if you think we are even close enough friends for that.’

The night is quiet. An owl hoots from somewhere in the Forest, the sound of trees rustling in the wind. Draco is still. The slice of his face that Harry can see is unreadable. Draco’s eyes are fixed on the parapet ahead. Harry waits, his heart pounding his chest. He’s sure that Draco can feel his heart reverberating through him.

So he’s said it. He didn’t think he would say it quite like this. He had imagined a quiet night in the kitchens, and he would ask the elves to prepare Draco’s favourite dishes – toad-in-a-hole, shepherd’s pie, and of course, apple cake – and he would set the table with a fancy tablecloth and a candle, and he would finally ask the right question – the one he should have asked months ago.

‘You’re an idiot,’ Draco finally says, and Harry feels Draco’s body relenting, leaning into his embrace.

Draco turns, and there is that smile on his face – the one tinged with disbelief and gratitude and exhilaration. He exhales, something between a gasp and a laugh.

‘You’re an idiot, Potter,’ Draco says again, and he laughs this time, bright and ringing. ‘Why would you choose this? You could have anyone in the world, you know. You shouldn’t have accepted going to dinner with me that very first time.’

Harry snorts, tightening his hold around Draco, dropping his head so that his cheek presses against Draco’s neck. ‘I would have asked you even if you hadn’t.’

‘Maybe,’ Draco says. ‘I rather thought you were losing your famous Gryffindor nerve, you see. I had to do something about the way you kept staring at me all the time. Ginny was egging me on too.’

‘Was she?’ Harry is astonished. ‘Even all the way back then? The interfering bint!’

‘Ernie too,’ Draco chuckles. ‘But I didn’t think this was possible. Not with _you_.’

He lets go of his legs, stretching them out, as he turns to face Harry properly. Grey eyes scour Harry’s face. Draco slips his arms around Harry’s waist, his face questioning. When Harry rolls his eyes and drags him in closer, the blond smirks and locks his hands behind Harry. They are close enough for Harry to feel Draco’s cool breath on his cheek, for Harry to see the way Draco’s eyes are silver in the starlight.

‘I like you,’ Harry whispers, the words trembling out of his mouth. ‘Do you? Like me too?’

Draco laughs. ‘Oh right, I forgot. You need everything to be said, don’t you? Well, Potter, I like you too. Why else would I submit myself to this ridiculous idea of yours to have supper out here on a cold night? I like you enough to forgo reason and logic. I really fucking like you, Potter.’

Harry bursts into laughter, and as he throws his head back, Draco leans in. He presses his lips against Harry’s, and their first kiss is the taste of starlight on a cold night with trees whispering their secrets to an infinite sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! All comments are extremely welcome either here or on [Livejournal](https://hd-fan-fair.livejournal.com/155695.html).


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